U.S. delegation not entitled to China-Japan mediation: FM

BEIJING, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- A U.S. delegation currently visiting Beijing is not entitled to mediate between China and Japan over the Diaoyu Islands dispute, a Foreign Ministry spokesman clarified on Monday.

"The delegation is visiting China at the invitation of the Chinese People's Institute of Foreign Affairs (CPIFA)," Hong Lei said at a regular news briefing in response to a question on the mission of the group, which includes former U.S. national security adviser Stephen Hadley.

Media reports have claimed Hadley and other former U.S. officials will provide mediation between China and Japan on the two countries' dispute over the Diaoyu Islands.

The CPIFA, founded in December 1949, is an organization devoted to people-to-people diplomacy between China and other countries.

According to the spokesman, the delegation will stay in China from Monday to Wednesday, and "The Chinese side will exchange views with them mainly on China-U.S. relations and other issues of concern to both sides."

"The delegation does not have the so-called function of mediation," he added.

As to the dispute, Hong said it's in the common interests of both the Chinese and the Japanese people to safeguard healthy and stable development of bilateral ties between the two Asian neighbors.

"What is urgent is that the Japanese side should in deed recognize and rectify their wrongdoings, face the facts and come back to the track of resolving the Diaoyu Islands dispute through dialogues and negotiations," said the spokesman.

BEIJING, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- China reiterated its solemn stance on the Diaoyu Islands, as U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns visited China on Wednesday.

According to a press release from the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi met with Burns and Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun held talks with the U.S. visitor on Wednesday. Full story

BEIJING, Oct. 9 (Xinhua) -- In late September, the United States Congressional Research Service amended and republished a report titled "The Senkaku Islands Dispute: U.S. Treaty Obligations."

"During Senate deliberations on whether to consent to the ratification of the Okinawa Reversion Treaty, the State Department asserted that the United States took a neutral position with regard to the competing claims of Japan, China and Taiwan, despite the return of the islands to Japanese administration," the report states. Full story

BEIJING, Oct. 14 (Xinhuanet) -- Japan’s Kyodo News agency says a joint Japan-US exercise is to be held in November, simulating the retaking of a remote island.

Troops from Japan’s self defense forces will work alongside US troops stationed in Japan, for the drill near an inhabited island in Okinawa prefecture. The Island exercises are part of an overall joint drill being held from November the 5th to the 16th. Full story

WASHINGTON, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- Japan is in the midst of "a gradual but significant shift to the right", acting more confrontationally in the region than at any time since World War II, a major U.S. newspaper warned Friday.

Japan's shift can be seen in several aspects, including "an increasingly muscular role for the nation's Self-Defense Forces (SDF)" and a push among mainstream politicians to revise key portions of the pacifist constitution, the Washington Post reported in a front-page story. Full story

MOSCOW, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- Russia on Monday expressed its concerns over the development of a new U.S. radar in Japan, calling on the U.S. to balance efforts and avoid damaging other countries' security interests.

Earlier on Monday, U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced the United States and Japan have agreed to locate the second U.S. missile defense radar in Japan to monitor possible threats from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). Full story

BEIJING, Sept. 12 (Xinhua) -- While the diplomatic standoff between Beijing and Tokyo simmers following Japan's farce to buy China's Diaoyu Islands, the United States has kept unusually silent concerning the true history of the territory.

Even if Washington deliberately neglects the fact that the Diaoyu Islands were first discovered and named by the Chinese, it has no excuse to deny that it does know the history of the islands after the Second World War. Full story

WASHINGTON, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- A U.S. foreign policy expert said here that he believed the U.S. government's position on the Diaoyu islands is "contradictory."

"Because the only way that the U.S.-Japan defense treaty should apply to those islands is if the United States regards them as Japanese territory," Ted Carpenter, senior fellow for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, told Xinhua in a recent interview. Full story

BEIJING, Aug. 24 (Xinhua) -- Senior military officials of the United States and Japan confirmed on Thursday that the two countries were discussing the option of adding another X-band early-warning radar at the island nation's northern Shariki base to contain missile threats.

Though the U.S. State Department promptly denied that the missile defense hardware is targeted against China, yet considering the U.S.' persistently deliberate exaggeration of "China's military threat," the denial is at best a poor lie. Full story